Martine Lara Daniel was born in York in 1981. From a young age, she knew she wanted to be a writer, and whilst at secondary school she would often be caught scribbling stories in the back of exercise books during lessons. Her dreams of seeing her name in print never dimmed, despite her life being turned upside down by episodes of mania, depression and brief psychosis during her late teens and early twenties. In 2003 the pressures of a stressful job brought on an episode of psychotic mania, which led to the breakdown that ended her hopes of a career in bookselling, following which Martine was finally forced into contact with local mental health services. With the help of medication and the support of her family, she began to pick up the pieces of her life and started work on The Fire in Your Eyes, juggling work on the novel with her studies with The Open University. She hopes to graduate with a BA (Hons) in Humanities with English Language in 2010.

Open University: Creative Writing (Grade 2 pass, 2007)
Open University: Advanced Creative Writing (2009)